Hey all, I don’t like to shamelessly promeote myslef on a blog like this, but I got to spread the word around. I tried once before on kickstarter to fund my graphic novel pitch, but failed. Here’s is my 2nd attempt, have a bit more material prepared, and have a more modest budget.
If anything, please reblog! I want to get this thing seen by Dark Horse, so I can be considered part of that great crowd with artists like Darrow!
Fantastic Syd Mead piece. Just saw an exhibition of his work, extremely amazing to see in person, especially knowing they were done in gouache.
Photo taken by my friend, D’mitri.
Holy crap. Otomo AND Moebius….adapting the AIRTIGHT GARAGE?! Why on earth did this not happen? This is upsetting.
This upsets me so much. Even more so than the failed Dune!
The Airtight Garage: An animated feature film that never happened, produced by Akira Kurosawa and directed by Katsuhiro Otomo
This just breaks my heart you guys. While searching through ebay, I found this book of storyboards for a failed Russian production of an Airtight Garage animated film from 1990-91. I had never heard of this before, so I looked around and found THIS:
“This might be the start of another sad “Moebius can’t make a movie” story if it weren’t for Kurosawa Enterprises USA, which has hooked up with Rivier and Starwatcher Graphics (Giraud’s US corporation) to produce The Airtight Garage. Kurosawa is working on securing a worldwide distribution deal, and is supporting the animation production in Japan.
Japanese film master Akira Kurosawa and French comic master Moebius make a complementary team. Giraud started out making Western comics and then moved into science fiction. Kurosawa directed Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, which became the basis for two world-famous westerns: The Magnificent Seven and A Fistful of Dollars. His film The Hidden Fortress foreshadowed the plot of Star Wars.
Rivier says that one reason he was so excited to have animation buff Kurosawa involved with the movie project was that the director has access to Japanese animators. The Starwatcher movie never got past a six-minute demo because nobody involved in the project realized how expensive it was to make a full-length movie using only high quality 3-D computer graphics. This time around The Airtight Garage will use a combination of traditional cel animation and computer animation. The cel animation will be done in Japan under the direction of Katsuhiro Otomo, whose animated feature Akira was a huge hit in Japan and a cult classic in the United States. Like Giraud in his cinematic approach to comics, “Otomo uses traditional cinematography techniques for animation,” says Rivier. “His angles and camera movement look like real life movies.” The computer animation will be done in the United States.”
Completely dumb-founded. And completely heart-broken.
Moebius: king of everything, including being the cream of the almost-happened-story crop.
